I have often felt it a pity how the world is globalizing to the
extent that you find the same restaurants, the same music, and the
same movies show up wherever you go. Top 40 music stations, not
that I listen to them, sound the same all over the country and even
in Mexico. I had not realized how bad the problem had gotten. For
a new sign of the times, how is this? This homogenizing of the
world seems these days to be for the birds, literally. Wild birds
will choose calls by listening to calls of other birds. Of late,
however, there has been a marked increase in the calls of birds
sounding like they came from pieces of popular human songs. The
phenomenon was observed by ornithologists but was not treated
seriously because it seemed so unlikely that the birds would have
that much opportunity to hear human songs. The similarity was
ascribed to coincidence and the subconscious mind's over-
willingness to find similarities and order in chaos. The idea of
wild birds singing human songs was classed with the canals of Mars
as a figment of the imagination. The concept of wild birds singing
human songs was just laughed off. It was just a bit Walt Disney-
ish. Not any more.

The missing link in the process is now thought to be cellular
phones. Cellular phone manufacturers license familiar popular
melodies because their customers like them as ring tones for in-coming
calls. Sadly, the cell phones do carry the music chimes
even into the wild places. Birds pick up the melodies and teach
them to other birds. The Danish Ornithological Association
reports, "More and more singing birds are adding new songs to their
repertoire, all thanks to mobile phones." Now you can feel proud
that we really are a major step closer to having taught the world
to sing in perfect harmony.

And while we are on the subject of human technology encroaching on
nature, there is a visiting professor at MIT who has decided that
the Internet can be a boon to the lives of American domesticated
parrots. Not that it can be used to buy them bigger and better
cuttlebones at cut-rate wholesale prices. No, she thinks that
parrots actually have a need to be able to surf the Internet.

As Pepperberg explains, "In the wilds they live in flocks... People
buy these animals as pets. They interact a lot with them in the
morning and they interact with them a lot in the evening, but they
leave them for eight or nine hours a day." Frankly I think she is
understating the problem. Pepperberg is assuming the birds sleep
all night. The birds probably sleep to alleviate the boredom
during the day but then probably cannot sleep at night. In any
case parrot probably would find time heavy on their hands, if they
had hands. They become bored and often show it by screaming and
chewing their feathers and in general acting like neurotic parrots.

But Pepperberg's solution is one that seems strange at first. The
solution is to teach the poor lonely birds to surf the Internet. A
colleague of Pepperberg, one Benjamin Resner, a research assistant,
suggested that a parrot should be able to pass the lonely hours
looking at wildlife pictures on the Internet. They have a gray
parrot named Arthur. They have built a joystick controller that
Arthur can manage. So far Arthur has shown no interest in either
e-mail or chat rooms.

Resner has worked out a piece of software that will select out
sites that have particular parrot appeal. I suppose it is kind of
an extension of web software that censors the Internet for
children. For now Resner can only guess what a parrot really likes
to see. Eventually the restrictions will be taken off and the bird
will be given a free hand or wing or something.

So bird culture is slowly merging with human culture. While the
Danish Ornithological Association is bemoaning the birds picking up
human tunes, Pepperberg is helping birds to use computers. I have
been expecting it for some time now and I am happy to say that it
is not all birds picking up human habits. Humans are picking up
bird habits also. You should see the job Evelyn does with a pile
of sunflower seeds. [-mrl]

Capsule: MOULIN ROUGE begins with a sensory
overload of images and fast cutting to create
an exuberant and viscerally exciting view of
the bohemian life in Paris of a century ago.
The flush and excitement of experiencing 1900
Paris is surreally exaggerated. After thirty
minutes or so the pace slackens a bit, but much
of the style remains. Nicole Kidman and Ewan
McGregor star as an expensive courtesan and the
young writer who loves her. The film is
hypnotic and entrancing. The first half-hour
is worth the price of admission all by itself.
Rating: 7 (0 to 10), +2 (-4 to +4)

In making love or in making musicals, you must never doubt your own
abilities. Once you become self-conscious about how to do it, you
probably cannot any more. The United States once was unexcelled at
making musicals, from Busby Berkeley to Rogers and Hammerstein this
made lots and most of the best. Now the feature-length musical has
nearly died in the US except for some weak efforts in recent years
to bring it back. Woody Allen's EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU was
really a feeble attempt at dabbling in the genre. More recently
there have been somewhat more successful attempts at the edges of
the genre with SOUTH PARK and O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? On the
other hand, in Australia when it seems appropriate to make a
musical they just dive into it with the apparent natural ease of
Rooney and Garland saying, "Hey, let's put on a show." Baz
Luhrmann, with the musical STRICTLY BALLROOM under his belt
already, dives in with not just ease but gusto to make the fabulous
musical MOULIN ROUGE. Set in 1900 Paris, the beauty of the women,
the weird characters, the glamour the fin-de-siecle exuberance are
presented in an explosion of sensory overload. Luhrmann does some
really extraordinary things with this film. I like a director who
does something unusual those now boring studio banners at the
beginning of the film. It is a way to announce that this will be a
creative film from the very first frame. Luhrmann has some fun
with the Fox logo and theme and right away the viewer realizes this
is a film that will have his eyes glued to the screen.

The plotting is somewhat familiar, but then most musicals do not
have a really strong plot. Luhrmann, who both co-writes and
directs, opens the film with a half-hour or more of high-energy
excitement. We start with fledgling writer, Christian (played by
Ewan McGregor) coming to Paris over his father's objections.
Almost immediately he has an unconscious Argentinean fall through
his ceiling and in moments is embroiled in writing for the film's
title nitery a show called "Spectacular. Spectacular." The star of
the show will be singer, courtesan, and toast of Paris, Satine
(Nicole Kidman). The new show has been created by a small team of
artists led by the diminutive giant Toulouse Lautrec (John
Leguizamo) under the control of the impresario Zidler (Jim
Broadbent having a field day). This first night Satine is
scheduled to seduce the possible producer for Spectacular
Spectacular, the Duke of Worcestor (Richard Roxburgh), but through
a mistake in identity she seduces Christian instead. Being young
and impressionable he stays seduced and in love. But the duke
expects that he will get Satine as part of the deal of producing
the play. From there the story borrows several plot highlights
from Alexander Dumas's CAMILLE.

The film is marvelously inventive throughout, though after the
first half-hour it slows considerably. Touches of that first rush
include a terrific visualization of the Green Fairy said to live in
bottles of that green (and literally toxic) intoxicant, absinthe.
The film remains a tribute to Paris and the extravagant musical
throughout, popular in Paris in the 19th and early 20th Century.
Luhrmann uses music not from the period but more modern and
familiar melodies choosing as the centerpiece a peculiar choice,
"There Was a Boy" from the film THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR.

The film features a standout performance by Nicole Kidman in a role
that seemed made for her. She is an icon playing an icon, and
playing it to the hilt. Ewan McGregor, of TRAINSPOTTING and the
screen's new Obi-Wan Kenobi is more than passable as the film's
lead, though his singing is obviously overdubbed. Kidman does her
own singing and does it as well as any professional. Jim Broadbent
is delicious as the strutting and high-stepping impresario Zidler.
Even the frequently irritating John Leguizamo does nicely as
Lautrec. He does not seem French, of course, but then nobody else
in the cast does either.

I can list on the fingers of one hand the set of musicals I
actually like as musicals. I like FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, ROCKY
HORROR PICTURE SHOW, CABARET, and very few others. Most musicals I
bide my time and wait for the singing to be over. This is a bide-
my-time sort of musical, but it has its share of other rewards.
Even I can appreciate its tributes to the stage and screen musical.
I rate it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
[-mrl]